


Know Your Enemy

by ThatwasJustaDream



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Community: 1_million_words, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 16:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7764118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little bit of McDanno written to a prompt on the 1_million_words comm, the prompt being "Know Your Enemy."  Also a 'happy birthday' to Haldoor - hope you get a smile from it. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Know Your Enemy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [haldoor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/haldoor/gifts).



“Do you think we’ll ever get married?” Steve asked.

Timing was everything: He had counted it out after Danny’s head hit the pillow, let him enjoy that _‘ahhhh’_ feeling at the end of a long day for exactly five seconds before he asked it.

“Why?” Danny didn’t turn over, but Steve saw his fingers go to his closed eyes to gently rub them - like, Steve, thought, he anticipated having a headache in them soon.

“Why get married, you mean? It’s a valid question. It’s not like we have to. I’m never gonna get you pregnant no matter how hard I try, so….” 

“No, you awkward, awkward …goofball, why are you asking me a question like this at eleven thirty five on a work night?”

Danny did turn, now, still out flat but eyes looking up at him. Steve noted the faintest hint of an eye roll. Normally that would make him want to toss Danny a zinger of some sort- but this was not the time for that.

“What?” he asked, trying to sound like he’d barely noticed it. “What have I done to annoy you?”

“This is my life now,” Danny said. “My actual life, lying here watching you read ‘Guns and Ammo’ magazine in bed, me kept from blissful sleep by your habit of asking theoretical and delicate midnight questions.”

“ _Delicate?_ ”

That was too much: Steve couldn’t fight back a grin at the idea of anyone finding anything about him or his actions delicate.

“Well, isn’t it?” Danny reached up and gave the back of Steve’s magazine a thwack with his thumb and index finger, making the pages fly a little, looking like he enjoyed the jump of annoyance it got out of him. “Make no mistake; any time the ‘m’ word comes up, that’s dangerous territory, buddy. Why did you even think about that right now, anyway?”

“It’s… nothing. Forget it.”

“Tell me.”

This was it: Steve knew one trip up in tone of voice alone could blow the whole thing out of the water. But he had practiced. Was ready. So…. deep breath….. and…..nonchalant. He was very nonchalant.

“It kind of dawned on me earlier: You were talking with Grace about her fall classes and… she’ll be looking at colleges in a couple of years. Won’t she? Charlie will be in school by then, too. You’ll have a lot going on in your life. Not that you don’t now, but… they’ll have a lot going on, too, that they don’t have to deal with at the moment.…”

“I hadn’t thought about it….”

“Who knows?” Steve did his best to look like he’d said his piece, and was getting re-absorbed by the article he was pretending to read. “This next year or so… it could be a kind of calm before the storm for you. Right?”

He watched Danny pull himself up to sit next to him, and resisted the urge to break the silence that built.

“I’d been thinking, myself,” Danny said, eventually. “that if we did, you know… make it legal? Rachel would be a lot more likely to agree to you being a legal guardian for them.”

“Smart,” Steve flipped a page. “Then, if anything ever happened at school, or…whatever… I’d be more able to help them if you two weren’t around.“

“That could be…critical. In a crisis. Right?” Danny concurred.

Steve gave him a nod he hoped conveyed genuine concern but also a kind of casual, ‘whatever, just blue-skying this, no biggie….’

He watched out of the corner or his eye as Danny’s expression went from thoughtful to that vaguely obsessive look he got at some point in virtually every day - the one that made Steve want to tell him not to worry: To grab him and hug him, kiss his face and tickle his sides until Danny laughed and slapped Steve’s hands away. 

Steve waited… waited…. then….

“Like you said, it’s a topic better discussed later,” Steve tossed the magazine on the nightstand and hit his light. “‘Night, Danno.”

Now it was pitch dark, only a trace of moonlight through the curtains, and Danny was the one sitting there as Steve sank into his pillow with a long, contented sigh.

“We should,” Danny said. “We should do this. We have to get married.”

“We don’t have to,” Steve didn’t move a muscle. “I mean… there are good reasons not to….”

“Like what?” Danny now sounded both vaguely worried and distinctly annoyed.

“Because we drive each other up the wall on a daily basis.”

“Do you see that changing anytime in the future?”

“No,” Steve acknowledged. “If we’re lucky enough to live to be eighty….that’ll still be the case.”

“Do you not want to marry me, you bastard?”

“I never said that,” Steve tilted his head just enough to look up at him with one narrowed eye, “Not picking a fight, babe.”

Then he closed his eye, like that was that and he would appreciate Danny letting him go to sleep.

“October,” Danny said, back still against the headboard.

“October, what?” 

“We get married in October, when Grace has school break. She won’t have to miss any of the fun or the rehearsals or such for classes. Plus, any later than October and we’re running into the holidays. Then it’s the new year and.…”

Steve knew this was it: The trickiest portion of all, right now.

“Do you really think there’s time to make it happen?”

“Of course. Kono just had a wedding, so she’s way up to speed on all the tricks and tips. She’ll help us, I’m sure.”

Steve rolled on his back - slowly - as if he was weighing it all. Then, the coup de grace: a long, weight of the world sigh.

“I don’t know, Danny. Maybe… we should wait.”

“No.”

“No?”

“October.”

“Okay….” Steve propped himself up on one elbow. “If you insist. October. Come here…”

Danny took the hint and leaned in for a kiss - then let Steve wrestle him around into a spoon.

He heard Danny thinking out loud for a couple of minutes while he drifted off: Talking about possible venues, budgets, guest lists…. 

….mission accomplished. 

~*~

“I hear congrats are in order,” Chin greeted Steve with a high five and a one arm hug in the parking lot at work.

It was a rare day Steve and Danny didn’t drive in together, now, but two active cases meant a lot of directions for them all to go in.

“Yeah. He’s upstairs, huh?” Steve nodded toward the door. “Did he tell Kono already, too?”

“Oh, yes. They’re conferring. So how’d you do it? Did you take my advice, and go with the direct route? Appeal to his logic? Or did you go the romantic route.”

“Uh…. neither,” Steve shrugged. “Sorry, Chin. I know you meant well, but.. If I’d flat out asked him to marry me last night he’d still be panicking. No question.”

“I guess you’re right - that could happen. Considering what he’s been through before.”

“See…. you have to have a strategy,” Steve explained patiently. “You have to know your enemy…”

“You did not just call Danny your enemy?”

“Yeah, I did, but…that’s not…what I…meant. You know what I meant.”

“I guess I do,” Chin gave him a look that said ‘God help you both,’ but he was smiling, shaking his head. “Who am I to judge? I’m not the one who had to convince Danny Williams to say ‘I do’ again.”

“Not only did I convince him,” Steve gave Chin a ‘check this out’ slap on the shoulder. “I'm pretty sure he thinks it was his idea.”

“So when’s the wedding?” Chin asked. 

“October,” Steve said. “Will you be my best man?”

“I’d be deeply disappointed if you asked anyone else.”

“Good. Thanks, buddy.”

They headed upstairs, and Chin couldn’t help chuckling as they took the steps.

“Know your enemy….” he muttered.

“Stop it. Don't tell Danny I said that, okay?”

“I won’t. It’s a good thing you two found each other.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “It really is, isn’t it?”


End file.
